from the faint-signs-of-life dept

It's an idea that almost makes sense, provided you don't examine it too closely. America's neverending series of intervention actions and pseudo-wars has created a wealth of military surplus -- some outdated, some merely more than what was needed. Rather than simply scrap the merchandise or offload it at cut-rate prices to other countries' militaries (and face the not-unheard-of possibility that those same weapons/vehicles might be used against us), the US government decided to distribute it to those fighting the war (on drugs, mostly) at home: law enforcement agencies.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, it quickly became a way to turn police departments into low-rent military operations. Law enforcement officials sold fear and bought assault rifles, tear gas, grenade launchers and armored vehicles. They painted vivid pictures of well-armed drug cabals and terrorists, both domestic and otherwise, steadily encroaching on the everyday lives of the public, outmanning and outgunning the servers and protectors.

Then the Ferguson protests began after Michael Brown's shooting in August, and the media was suddenly awash in images of camouflage-clad cops riding armored vehicles while pointing weapons at protesters, looking for all the world like martial law had been declared and the military had arrived to quell dissent and maintain control.

This prompted a discussion that actually reached the halls of Congress. For a brief moment, it looked like there might be a unified movement to overhaul the mostly-uncontrolled military equipment re-gifting program. But now that the indictment has been denied and the city of Ferguson is looted and burning, those concerns appear to have been forgotten.

Lawmakers vowed changes to the Pentagon programs that deliver military-grade equipment to local police after images of cops climbing out of armored vehicles with military-grade weapons filtered out of Ferguson, Missouri, in August.

But months later, the chaotic 1033 program — which sends surplus military gear built for combat to local police forces with little oversight — hasn’t changed at all.

The 113th Congress will end without substantive changes to the program. The White House hasn’t announced the results of its policy review. The flow of billions in technology designed for the battlefield to local police forces will go on unabated.

While some legislators got caught up in the moment, others have been fighting this battle for much longer. Rep. Hank Johnson has been pushing for an overhaul since late last year, when he had the dubious "privilege" of walking behind some repurposed military equipment during a small town Christmas parade. This not being an issue du jour for Johnson has helped his credibility, but has had little real impact. Even those whose legislation pursuits aren't a product of the prevailing winds still find the prevailing winds to be a frustration.

“We were ready to introduce that legislation just before we left for the August break, but my staff and I decided to wait until we returned into session before we actually filed it. So during that time, of course, Ferguson happened,” Johnson told BuzzFeed News. “When Ferguson happened it was a visual display of what my legislation was attempting to stop, and that was the free-flow of military-grade weaponry onto the streets of America. … Then we were able to get some bipartisan interest in this bill.”

From that point, there was a brief period of intense bipartisan momentum to investigate and change the program — before that momentum hit a wall.

Others -- including President Obama -- promised to look into the program. Obama ordered the first top-level review of the Pentagon's 1033 program in over 20 years, but weeks later, there's been nothing reported.

Police organizations have ramped up their support of the program, throwing fear into politicians who know that coming across as anti-police doesn't gain them much support from the demographic that actually votes in large numbers. A mid-term election has also added to the problem, with new membership changing priorities and old supporters finding themselves looking for day jobs.

The government returns to stasis. Police militarization continues to remain on the public's radar, something clearly not reflected by their representatives. And when the representatives do show some awareness of the warlike agencies prowling the nation's cities under the guise of law enforcement, what will they see? They'll see images of Officer Wilson standing over the body of the unarmed man he shot replaced by images of used car lots on fire and looters grabbing essentials like hair care products and Funyuns from local businesses. In short, they'll see all the justification they'll ever need to see.

from the that'll-teach-the-stupid-public! dept

If you're like several law enforcement agencies here in the US, there's a good chance you've obtained a heavily-armored vehicle from the Dept. of Defense's 1033 program. Like much of the military equipment obtained through this program (often with the assistance of DHS grants), an MRAP doesn't so much address a need as it creates a problem: new law enforcement tools but nothing to use them for. So, rather than save it for terrorists or active shooters, MRAPS and other military gear are co-opted by SWAT teams or deployed against protesters.

Now, through the 1033 program, these officers and deputies are prepared to use the proper tools for what threats may come. We all understand that improper and ignorant application of these tools is not only a liability, its deliberate indifference. These trucks feel, drive, and act unlike anything most drivers and teams are used to — to simply put them to use without proper training is asking for people to get hurt or killed.

Rabinovich details this MRAP training, most of which involves handling the heavy, unwieldy vehicles, as well as the unique bonding experience that is advanced tactical training at a "flagship Nebraska facility."

One of the most unique things about this course was the positive attitude and genuine desire to learn which didn’t stop when the class was dismissed. Everything from class topics to shooting positions to medical equipment was discussed around the fire pit under the Nebraska moon.

1. Better-equipped and trained police are a better asset to protect and serve their communities.

2. In some quarters, violent anti-government groups and individuals are targeting cops as scapegoats.

3. There has been a steady increase in deadly and violent assaults on cops — as well as acts of domestic and international terrorism — many of which are reported in limited scope or not publicly known.

The "better-equipped" justification is tough to argue with. Arguably, a heavily-armored vehicle is protective but how does it "serve" the community? It's not as though endangered citizens get to shuttle in and out of crime scenes in bulletproof vehicles. The argument rests on the assumption that a more well-protected police force is a net win for the community. Maybe it is, but Rabinovich doesn't bother connecting those dots.

Better training is also an essential part of protecting and serving the community. But how does the acquisition of an MRAP better train police? Rabinovich doesn't explore this logical dead end any further, so it's left up to the audience to make its own assumptions.

"Violent anti-government groups" is a very recent talking point, one used to paint government accountability groups as "violent," using a very broad brush in hopes of destroying the credibility of Peaceful Streets or Cop Block. Rabinovich further cheapens this by portraying these groups as "scapegoating" police officers, but once again fails to clarifiy his choice of words. Nothing further is written that explains why these officers are being "scapegoated" and Rabinovich doesn't even bother to given any examples of this "targeting."

The last argument is just as awful as the first two but has the additional feature of being factually wrong. Police work isn't becoming increasingly dangerous, even with the supposed corresponding uptick in "domestic and international terrorism." Rabinovich must know this assertion won't hold up because he adds the ridiculous claim that attacks on cops are ignored by much of the media or never reported at all. The exact opposite is the truth. In addition, the number of officers killed or wounded by civilians is a stat tracked by nearly every law enforcement agency. Civilians killed or wounded by police officers are stats tracked by amateurs, despite the fact that the Dept. of Justice has ordered these numbers to be reported annually -- an order that has been mostly ignored for the last thirteen years.

Rabinovich offers these terrible justifications and follows it up with this:

If these are the trucks being given away, these are the truck being implemented into law enforcement service. If someone thinks their tax dollars are better served letting these assets rust away or be given to foreign armies, maybe their cash is greener than yours or mine.

If you're against police militarization then you must be for wasting tax dollars and arming foreigners. It's that simple. You could not be any less of an American.

But what Rabinovich thinks we shouldn't do with excess military equipment is exactly what we do with excess military equipment. We don't hand off tanks to police departments just because the only other options are the scrapyard or an overseas army. We shouldn't be doing this with other military gear either. Law enforcement agencies don't need mine-resistant vehicles, assault rifles and grenade launchers. Law enforcement has existed without all three for several decades, including years when being a cop was much more dangerous than it is now. These justifications are nothing more than the cheapest of rationlizations.

from the safety-first! dept

We've been detailing the issue of police militarization for quite some time around here (though the best resource on the issue has been Radley Balko, who wrote an excellent book on the topic). The issue has finally become at least somewhat mainstream, thanks to the high-profile appearance of militarized police responding to the protests in Ferguson, Missouri. This has, at the very least, resulted in at least a few police departments thinking better of their decision to accept surplus military gear from the Defense Department via its 1033 program. And the latest is the Los Angeles School Police Department.

Just last week, MuckRock posted on its site about a FOIA request from California, detailing the military equipment given to school police forces. Just the fact that any military equipment is being given to school police should raise some serious questions, but the one that really stood out was that the LA School Police had been given three grenade launchers, along with 61 assault rifles and one MRAP (mine resistant vehicle -- the big scary looking armored vehicles that have become one of the key symbols of police militarization). Asked to explain itself, the LA School police chief, Steve Zipperman, claimed that the district had actually received the grenade launchers and the rifles all the way back in 2001 (though the MRAP is brand-spanking-new). But, he claimed, we shouldn't worry too much, because the police didn't think of them as "grenade launchers," but rather "ammunition launchers," and they were mainly kept around in case other police needed them:

Zipperman said that although the Pentagon identifies the three launchers as grenade launchers, civilian police call them less-deadly ammunition launchers. He assured me that the school police never had any intention of lobbing grenades at anyone, ever, and that they would not be used against students to launch anything. But as a police department, he said, LAUSD’s finest engage in mutual-aid pacts with other police agencies, and the ability to move those launchers out of storage might come in handy.

As for the assault rifles, Zipperman said they were converted to semiautomatic assault rifles -- why am I not feeling better yet? -- and are used to train a cadre of officers within the department. Those officers in turn are equipped with civilian semiautomatic rifles, which are either kept in locked compartments within their patrol cars, or in more centralized locations, in case of a Columbine High School-type gunman attack.

Either way, with the outrage and backlash growing, the school district police force has now agreed to give up the grenade launchers, but it's keeping the rifles and the MRAP. The department told the LA Times that the rifles were "essential life-saving items" though no evidence is given of what lives they've saved.

That same article at the LA Times quotes someone from the Oakland School Police Department up here in Northern California, who received a "tactical utility truck" from the Pentagon program, saying that the truck is "a rolling public relations vehicle." Public relations how, exactly? That if the police don't like the look of you, they may blow your head off? And then there's this:

"We end up having to bring out a gas can and jumper cables every time we want to drive it — it's only used twice a year."

If they have to bring out the gas can and jumper cables every time they want to use it, it doesn't sound like it's particularly useful in those "emergency" situations we keep hearing about in defense of these programs. If there's suddenly a big emergency, and the police have to go searching for some gas and the jumper cables? Perhaps that just shows how non-"essential" these giveaways are.

from the a-tale-of-two-PDs dept

Today's militarized policeman often feels naked without the protection of mine-resistant vehicles, despite very little evidence that such vehicles are necessary to handle the deadly (or is it?) rigors of police work. Citizens, however, aren't so sure they like seeing their law enforcement officers rolling out like they're keeping the peace in the middle of Baghdad.

Even better, some representatives are finally starting to feel the same way. Sure, the vehicles and other militarized accoutrements may come cheap, thanks to DHS grants, but even deep, deep discounts aren't enough to justify picking these up simply because the US government has made them available.

Davis, Calif., city officials have directed the police department to return a surplus U.S. military armored vehicle to the federal government after residents, citing images seen during protests in Ferguson, Mo., expressed fears of militarization.

The Davis Police Department now has 60 days to get rid of a $689,000 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicle, which police acquired through a U.S. Defense Department program, and must consider other rescue vehicle options.

Councilman Robb Davis explained the rationale behind the decision:

"I am opposed to the investments that are made and then the results of those investments flowed back to our community in ways that may not hurt our community in a physical sense by are destructive in terms of not increasing our security but increasing our anxiety." Councilman Robb Davis said at a council meeting Tuesday.

The public's growing unease with the weaponry amassed via the Pentagon's 1033 program has been hurtling towards critical mass in recent weeks, thanks to the heavy-handed tactics and military gear used by police officers in response to protests in Ferguson, MO. The police cited armored vehicles' life-saving qualities in two separate instances, but that wasn't enough to sway the council's vote. Perhaps the worst part (for the cops) is the fact that they didn't even get a chance to take their new armored toy for a spin.

The Davis Police Department took possession of the free vehicle two weeks ago…

San Jose police spokeswoman Sgt. Heather Randol told KCBS the decision was made based on concerns for potential damage to the department’s image and community relationships.

“We want to keep their trust. We don’t want them to feel we are going off on another path with our police department,” she said. “We want them to feel comfortable about the tools that we use.”

Kudos to the SJPD. Not many police departments offer this sort of statement as lip service, much less with actions to back it up. Notice that it's San Jose, with a population of nearly 1 million and a violent crime rate right at the national average, that is voluntarily giving up its armored vehicle. Davis (pop. 66,000) has a violent crime rate that's roughly half of San Jose's, and its MRAP had to be taken away from it by the city government. (Quick fact: San Jose had 35 murders in 2012. Davis had 4... in the last decade.) Who would you rather be policed by? Those who know that combating serious crime doesn't require the use of shock-and-awe vehicles or those who think that officer safety is more important than maintaining a positive relationship with their community?

from the have-secured-parking-lots-with-cameras,-still-lose-Humvees dept

Turning police departments into military bases has been one of the side effects of the 1033 program. This program routes military weapons and vehicles (as well as ancillaries like office equipment and medical supplies) to police forces, asking for nothing in return but a small donation and the use of the words "terrorism" or "drugs" on the application form. The program has been extremely popular and the US government can rest easy knowing that its excess inventory won't go to waste.

Only within the past couple of weeks has anyone in the upper echelons of the government expressed concern about the program. President Obama has ordered a review of military hardware in law enforcement's hands, but previous to this move (forced by Ferguson cops' war-like tactics), the only thing heard from federal or local government has been the occasional bit of proposed legislation (including terribly-timed, objectively awful bills).

The program operates with very little oversight. No one in control of the dispersals seems to do any vetting of requests. This results in towns of 7,000 suddenly being confronted with the fact that their local police (all 12 of them) are now in possession of a mine-resistant vehicle.

Fusion has learned that 184 state and local police departments have been suspended from the Pentagon's "1033 program" for missing weapons or failure to comply with other guidelines. We uncovered a pattern of missing M14 and M16 assault rifles across the country, as well as instances of missing .45-caliber pistols, shotguns and 2 cases of missing Humvee vehicles.

When you start losing Humvees, it's a good sign you've got more equipment than you really need. Request forms make these items sound like dire necessities but the one thing most people do with stuff they really need is keep track of where it is. A number of agencies are apparently less than concerned about the whereabouts of their terrorist-fighting equipment, only realizing something's missing when they have to perform their yearly check-in with the government reps.

Fusion found that many of the suspensions occur in February, after police departments conduct their year-end weapons inventory.

So, there's a little bit of accountability present in the program. But it's so minimal as to be nearly non-existent. Law enforcement agencies may rat themselves out by reporting missing equipment, but the Pentagon (home of the Defense Logistics Agency which handles the actual hand outs) seems just as badly organized as the agencies they eighty-six.

The decentralized structure of the program makes it difficult — even for the Pentagon — to keep tabs on the standing of participating police departments, or the weapons they've been issued. Officials at the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which runs the equipment-transfer program, were unable to provide specifics about why various police departments were suspended.

Why is a system that supposedly oversees the transfer of military goods to law enforcement decentralized? Well, it's because of bureaucracy. Every state handles it differently, resulting in data being routed through a variety of local agencies before it finally ends up in the Pentagon's hands. Like a game of telephone played by UN members without the assistance of translators, this "system" often returns inaccurate or incomplete information. In some states, the agency law enforcement reports to is the Dept. of Public Safety. In others, it might be something as obscure as the Dept. of Career Education.

Pulling hard numbers on handouts means sending an FOIA to the CIA, and even if a response is given (like a recent one MuckRock acquired), it only provides raw numbers on what was handed out to each state. Nothing is broken down to individual law enforcement agencies. So, we may know approximately where equipment went, but numbers on how much of it has gone missing is something that can only be estimated by the number of suspensions handed out. Those losing weapons and vehicles don't really want to talk about it.

The state coordinator for California said he was "not authorized" to speak on behalf of the agency he runs, and instead deferred all questions to the Governor's Office of Emergency Services, which declined repeated requests for details on the 10 suspended programs in the state.

And when they do talk about it, you almost wish they hadn't.

Huntington Beach Police Department said it was suspended from the program last year after losing an M16 assault rifle.

“It was discovered during an internal audit,” Huntington Beach Police Lieutenant Mitchell O'Brien told Fusion. “An investigation was inconclusive as to how that occurred.”

That's comforting. "We don't know how it happened or where it is."

Suspensions might hurt but they're apparently not much of a deterrent. The article lists more than a few repeat offenders. Only in rare cases will offenders be required to return the requisitioned items, and in the one case Fusion was able to track down, it was ordered by the state, not the Pentagon.

Increased power with near-zero accountability. That's a hell of a way to run the business of law enforcement.

Not that local law enforcement agencies couldn't throw an impressive Victory Day parade. The 1033 program, which sends military vehicles, weapons and equipment downstream to law enforcement agencies for pennies on the dollar, has shifted $4.3 billion from the Dept. of Defense to hundreds of police departments across the United States since 1997. Here's what the President is actually interested in seeing.

"Among other things, the president has asked for a review of whether these programs are appropriate," said a senior administration official, who was not authorized to speak on the record about the internal assessment. The review also will assess "whether state and local law enforcement are provided with the necessary training and guidance; and whether the federal government is sufficiently auditing the use of equipment obtained through federal programs and funding."

In other words, don't expect much to change, and not any time soon (if at all). "Training and guidance" are just fancy words for mandated Powerpoint presentations and initials from all officers required to attend these sessions. There's not much in here that indicates the government will start recalling equipment from over-armed law enforcement agencies. And as we all know, the government is objectively terrible at auditing itself. It's especially terrible when it comes to entities engaged in drug/terrorism wars. Let's not forget the Attorney General's office has yet to compile its required yearly roundup of excessive force statistics... for the 20th year in a row.

We can also expect a whole lot of nothing considering how many government agencies will be allowed to meddle with review process. The full list (so far) includes a fair number of entities whose self-interest will far outweigh their desire to make the United States a better place for its citizens.

The official said the review will be led by White House staff, including the Domestic Policy Council, the National Security Council and the Office of Management and Budget, along with the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury.

Speaking of the Attorney General: Eric Holder, who recently visited Ferguson, Missouri, made the following statement in nominal support of the review.

“This equipment flowed to local police forces because they were increasingly being asked to assist in counterterrorism,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a statement Saturday. “But displays of force in response to mostly peaceful demonstrations can be counterproductive. It makes sense to take a look at whether military-style equipment is being acquired for the right purposes and whether there is proper training on when and how to deploy it.”

Yes, "because terrorism" is the justification listed most often on War Machine Requisition Requests [Short Form]. The federal government is as much to blame as anybody, willing to oblige even the most paranoiac request with an explosive-resistant vehicle and a handful of assault rifles. But if you hand over a bunch of war toys to combat-ready cops desperately in search of a war, they'll create one if the public isn't willing to oblige.

Agencies cite domestic terrorism fears and then use the guns and vehicles for basic warrant service. Local SWAT teams, which are now more heavily armed than the military itself, are deployed for increasingly mundane tasks. And when finally given a reason to break out all of its acquisitions, officers roll up on the First Amendment in armored vehicles with gunmen on top and fire tear gas into/at crowds using grenade launchers.

As populist as this move is by the administration, it's still preferable to it doing nothing in the wake of the Ferguson debacle. I'd say we'll have to wait and see what comes of this, but I think we can pretty much agree that it's more noise than substance. It's been well over a decade since the US government decided fighting terrorism was Job #1 and nothing has really been rolled back since. We're finally seeing some pushback against dragnet surveillance, but that's something that has been forced on the government by a series of leaks, rather than a top-down initiative spearheaded by either of the two administrations presiding over US v. Terror.

Over-militarization isn't a new problem. It's just suddenly a highly visible problem. Inevitably, Ferguson will recede into the background and the President's review will just be another directive that's ignored or half-assed by a plethora of agencies who feel there's ultimately nothing wrong with deputizing the nation's police forces into the War on Terror and handing them equipment to use against non-terrorists. Let's not forget that behind every self-interested agency stands a number of self-interested corporations whose main goal is to secure lucrative, long-lasting contracts. No one listed above has any interest in tightening their belts, being more responsible about the distribution of military equipment or dialing back the marketing of terrorism as an all-encompassing, existential threat.

The President isn't interested either, but he had to respond to the situation somehow. And this is it: a highly-symbolic directive meant to address something the government only views as a fleeting concern, rather than the ongoing problem it actually is.

from the just-wondering... dept

We've been covering some of the more troubling details of police militarization across the US, and specifically what's going on in Ferguson, Missouri over the past couple of weeks. However, we knew fairly little about the actual military equipment being used there. And we know that sometimes scary looking military equipment isn't necessarily so scary when put to use. So it's interesting to read a former Marine's analysis of the military equipment being used in Ferguson, which more or less confirms that it not only looks scary but absolutely is scary. Much of the discussion is about how all those "non-lethal" "riot control" weaponry is actually quite dangerous and potentially lethal. Here are a few examples:

There are scattered reports of stun grenade use in Ferguson. Also known as flashbangs or flash grenades, this weapon of choice for American SWAT teams (and Israeli soldiers) originated in the British special forces community more than four decades ago. Ostensibly less than lethal, stun grenades have been known to kill or severely injure numerous victims, and the device was recently in the news for burning a 19-month-old baby in Georgia, resulting in a coma, during one of the thousands of domestic police raids this year. They are designed to temporarily blind and deafen, thanks to a shrapnel-free casing that is only supposed to emit light and sound upon explosion. Nonetheless, the list of casualties is long, and the number of flammable mishaps is disconcerting. In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko recounts a story of an FBI agent accidentally lighting himself and his vehicle on fire.

[....]

These "pepper balls" are lethal; the Boston Police Department banned them after a young woman was killed by one. It passed right through the eye and skull to the brain. She was guilty of being present in a rowdy crowd after a Red Sox v. Yankees game in which the former won. The ACLU condemned the use of such projectiles for the purposes of crowd management back in 1997, following an unfortunate incident in Eugene, Oregon. They even convinced Eugene officials to do the same. It's about time St. Louis County and the rest of the country followed suit.

[....]

Like the stun grenade, employing wooden pellets as a form of riot control was spearheaded by the British decades ago, mainly in Hong Kong. As the ACLU makes clear, considerable litigation has proceeded in the aftermath of such tactics, including suits brought by protesters in Oakland who bore the brunt of these measures around the beginning of the Iraq War. Longshoremen on their way to work also suffered and sued accordingly. As a result, the Oakland police department caved and beating residents with wooden projectiles as a means of crowd management was rendered illegal.

There's a lot more in the article as well. But here's the bit that really stood out for me. After posting a picture of militarized police moving down the street looking pretty scary, the former marine, Lyle Jeremy Rubin, explains how they're more well armed than the actual military in Afghanistan:

What we're seeing here is a gaggle of cops wearing more elite killing gear than your average squad leader leading a foot patrol through the most hostile sands or hills of Afghanistan. They are equipped with Kevlar helmets, assault-friendly gas masks, combat gloves and knee pads (all four of them), woodland Marine Pattern utility trousers, tactical body armor vests, about 120 to 180 rounds for each shooter, semiautomatic pistols attached to their thighs, disposable handcuff restraints hanging from their vests, close-quarter-battle receivers for their M4 carbine rifles and Advanced Combat Optical Gunsights. In other words, they're itching for a fight. A big one. It's a well-known horror that the US military greets foreign peoples in this fashion as our politicians preach freedom, democracy and peace. It's an abomination that the police greet black communities in the States with the same trigger-happy posture. Especially on the occasion of an unarmed teen's death by cop.

He also discusses the general rule that people repeat in our comments all the time: "never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot." And yet, of course, in pretty much every picture of the police here, we see them pointing weapons. And sometimes worse. Here's some video of a police officer in Ferguson not just pointing a weapon at some people livestreaming the protests, but telling the livestreamers that "I will fucking kill you." When the streamers ask him for his name, he says "Go fuck yourself."

And, again, remember that this is not in response to any terrorist threat, but to some protests after a fellow police officer killed an unarmed teenager. While that particular officer has since been suspended, it seems worth questioning this particular approach to policing.

Actually, isn't it about time we rethought the entire way that this country handles policing?

from the that-MRAP-has-been-paid-for-several-times-over,-it-would-seem... dept

Color me unamazed. Politicians who are in favor of the government's 1033 program -- which distributes excess military gear and weapons to police departments engaged in our country's two favorite "wars" (v. Terror, v. Drugs) -- received a lot more money from defense contractors than those who oppose it.

In June, the House of Representatives voted on an amendment from Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) that sought to partially defund the 1033 Program. The amendment failed on a bipartisan vote of 62-355.

Representatives voting to continue funding the 1033 Program have received, on average, 73 percent more money from the defense industry than representatives voting to defund it.

Fifty-nine representatives received more than $100,000 from the defense industry from January 1, 2011 - December 31, 2013. Of those only four supported defunding the 1033 Program.

This amendment didn't even target some of the common transfers: assault rifles, night vision goggles, etc.. These common indicators of police militarization would have continued to flow from the US government to law enforcement agencies unabated. Instead, 355 legislators voted that local law enforcement should still be allowed access to the following equipment:

One wonders if armored vehicles and drones had been struck from the list, the vote might have been more even. But phrased the way it was, if you still wanted your local PDs to acquire MRAPs, silencers and helicopters, you had to also give them the theoretical ability to requisition toxicological agents and ballistic missiles.

I don't imagine the government will be handing out guided missiles and nukes to law enforcement EVER, but what can be requisitioned is still partially a secret and information released to Muckrock by the Defense Logistics Agency only denotes which state received what, rather than indicate which law enforcement agencies were involved.

But even if the government has no intention of turning local law enforcement into full-fledged armies with nuclear/biological weapon capabilities, it's still handing over weapons and vehicles with little to no discretion. As Christopher Ingraham at the Washington Post notes, if you can fill out one very simple form, you'll be able to roll down Main Street, USA in an armored tactical vehicle bristling with military assault rifles.

But if you are a law enforcement agency in the U.S., you can apply for a free armored tactical vehicle from the Pentagon with a simple one-page form, below. You can even apply for multiple vehicles using the same form!

Ingraham's article oversimplifies the process somewhat (a few layers of pre-approval are needed), but the fact remains that it's incredibly easy to outfit local law enforcement units with military gear. A vetting process with some teeth would likely have prevented small towns from acquiring vehicles designed to protect soldiers in combat zones from explosives.

Crime is way down and police are more heavily-armed and well-protected than ever. Part of it is defense contractors making sure there's still a growing market for their wares. As Maplight points out (quoting an ACLU report on police militarization), 36% of the equipment transferred to law enforcement via the 1033 program is brand new. What may have seemed to be a fiscally responsible program -- making use of excess military equipment rather than simply scrapping it -- is now another way to blow tax dollars. Only this time, it's having other adverse effects on the general public.

When the Defense Logistics Agency is buying brand new and transferring these purchases to law enforcement at pennies on the dollar (using DHS grants to pay the difference), the government is screwing taxpayers multiple times, at multiple levels -- and that's just in a financial sense. We shouldn't need an amendment to tell the Defense Dept. to stop turning locals cops into makeshift occupation forces, and we certainly shouldn't need to tell the government that no law enforcement agency needs ballistic missiles or bombs. Local cops really don't need armored vehicles either, but until legislators are willing to enact some serious limitations, the downhill slope from the DoD's excess property storage to the United States' police departments will continue unabated.

from the a-mess dept

We've been writing about the militarization of police, and why it's problematic, for years -- but the events of the last week in Ferguson, Missouri, have really shone a (rather bright) light on what happens when you militarize the police. Annie Lowrey, over at New York Magazine, highlights what may be most disturbing about all of it: all of this has happened while violence has been on a rapid decline, and, no it's not because your local suburban police force now has a SWAT team and decommissioned military equipment from the Defense Department:

Since 1990, according to Department of Justice statistics, the United States has become a vastly safer place, at least in terms of violent crime. (Drug crime follows somewhat different trends, though drug use has been dropping over the same time period.) The number of murders dropped to 14,827 in 2012 from 23,438 in 1990. The number of rapes has plummeted to 84,376 from 102,555. The number of robberies, motor-vehicle thefts, assaults — all have seen similarly large declines. And the number of incidents has dropped even though the country has grown.

So, instead, we get a very militarized police -- and tons of cases where it is being used in cases that absolutely don't warrant it. At all.

And here's the really disturbing thing. It may get a lot worse. As Vanity Fair notes, on June 19th, Rep. Alan Grayson had offered up an amendment on the Defense Appropriations bill, which would have limited the militarization of police. And it failed by a wide margin. Included in those voting against it? The guy who represents Ferguson.

The amendment attracted the support of only 62 members, while 355 voted against it (14 didn’t vote). Included among those voting against it was Rep. William Lacy Clay (D), who represents Ferguson. Clay was joined by every senior member of the Democratic Party leadership team, including Reps. Nancy Pelosi (CA), Steny Hoyer (MD), and Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (SC). Democrats did form the bulk of support for the amendment (with 43 votes in favor), with 19 Republicans supporting as well—led by libertarian-conservative Rep. Justin Amash (MI), who lamented that “military-grade equipment . . . shouldn’t be used on the street by state and local police” on his Facebook page.

Apparently, arming the police with military equipment has powerful lobbying support. Because why expect people to think about what actually makes sense when there's money and FUD on the line:

Why was there such tremendous opposition to the Grayson-Amash effort? Two very powerful constituencies in Congress may be to blame: the defense industry, and the police lobby.

So there's that. And then, let's take things up a notch. Scott Greenfield alerts us to the news that a judge over in Colorado has determined that the Cinemark Theater where James Holmes opened fired on the opening night of the Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises" may have some responsibility because it should have known that such an attack might happen. Despite the fact that there has never been such a shooting in a theater, the judge says that the theater should have been prepared for such a possibility:

Noting "the grim history of mass shootings and mass killings that have occurred in more recent times," U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson ruled that Cinemark — owner of the Century Aurora 16 theater — could have predicted that movie patrons might be targeted for an attack. Jackson's ruling allows 20 lawsuits filed by survivors of the attack or relatives of those killed to proceed toward trial.

"Although theaters had theretofore been spared a mass shooting incident, the patrons of a movie theater are, perhaps even more than students in a school or shoppers in a mall, 'sitting ducks,' " Jackson wrote.

That makes absolutely no sense. But the inevitable result, as Greenfield notes, seems to be a lot more militarized police -- and now, private security guards... everywhere. Just in case.

Consider, if what happened in Aurora, the duty of businesses to be prepared for the act of a one-in-a-million crazy. The biggest growth job in America will be armed guard. Every theater will require its own SWAT team, perhaps a MRAP or Bearcat. Office buildings, parks, skating rinks, pretty much anywhere more than three people gather, could be the next target of a madman. They will all need security, armed with the weapons needed to take out any crazy.

Don’t blame the businesses. They’re just trying to cover their foreseeable obligations. Sure, there is almost no chance, almost no possibility whatsoever, that they will be the target of the next insane shooter, but Judge Jackson says it’s still foreseeable. In fact, that no one has ever shot up a skating rink makes it even more foreseeable, by his rationale.

It is difficult to comprehend how profoundly screwed up all of this is.

from the shockingly-unshocking dept

After covering the militarized police fiasco in Ferguson, Missouri the past few days, including highlighting Anil Dash's rather simple point that the way to deal with angry protestors isn't to make them angrier, it appears that someone finally got the message. Missouri's governor kicked out the St. Louis County police, who were responsible for much of the previous escalation, and sent in the Missouri State Highway Patrol, who almost immediately set a very different tone -- one that involved a much smaller police presence, and one that was a lot friendlier. It even involved talking with (not just to) protestors in a cordial manner. The most striking image -- a complete reversal of the day before -- has to be Captain Ron Johnson, who was put in charge, walking with the protestors (in ordinary police garb) rather than having militarized police aiming high powered weaponry at them.

Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol walks along with the Ferguson march. Compare this to Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/Vtezu4MuHk

It's almost as if treating the public as people with rights who the police are supposed to be serving, rather than as an enemy that needs invading... works better. Who would have expected that, other than, well, most normal people?